Chances of new alliances clustered around Tokyo as Japan moves towards military normalization

Jhinuk Chowdhury is a former journalist based in India and is currently working as an independent writer. She has worked as a business correspondent for the leading Indian daily – The Times of India – covering human resources, IT, jobs and careers.
You can follow her on Twitter @jhinuk28.

With Japan moving towards military normalization, regional geopolitics in the East and South China Sea might be transformed creating new and unlikely alliances and new power blocs.

The handshake between
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in
2014 in Beijing, though awkward, had many to believe that a slow
thawing of the relationship between the two countries could be in
progress.

In fact, months after the APEC meet China and Japan held talks on setting up of a military
hotline to counter any emergency in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands –
a disputed region in the East China Sea
administered by Japan but claimed by China who regards it as
Chinese territory from before the First Sino-Japanese War.

However, going by the new moves Japan is taking; it is evident
that the threat perceptions still remain. The re-elected Abe
seems to be drawing closer to a more assertive military stance
for Japan than has been the case post World War II.

Japan with a past of war atrocities during World War II has been
following a security policy of self-defense only with no
right to involve in any collective defense activity with its
allies or otherwise.

However with the regional geopolitics changing and an
overpowering China, Japan has taken up the path towards
‘military normalization’ by increasing its military
budget after decades of modest defense spending and also
reinterpreting its right to defend its allies.

This transformed security outlook may change the regional
geopolitics creating new and unlikely alliances and power blocs.

Threat Perceptions

Abe showed signs of moving towards the right of defense assertion
in 2013 when for the first time in 11 years Japan announced an
increase in the country’s defense budget
enhancing the efficiency of the Japan Coast Guard (JCG) and the
Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) by arming it with amphibious
capabilities to safeguard its maritime interests.

This year the prime minister inaugurated his return to power with
the announcement of a $42 billion military budget - an increase in
spending of 2.8 percent - to procure items such as patrol
aircraft, early-warning aircraft, stealth fighters, and
amphibious vehicles

Putting the defense bracing in context Defense Minister Gen
Nakatani said, "The situation around Japan is changing".
"The level of defense spending reflects the amount necessary
to protect Japan's air, sea and land, and guard the lives and
property of our citizens."

What Nakatani could be referring to is China’s aggressively
growing military might. Last year it announced boosting itsdefense budget by 12.2 percent (nearly $132
billion) which is more than Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and
Vietnam combined.

Reports also have it that Beijing, till now a significant buyer
of Russian aircraft, ships and submarines, is getting into
building up its own domestic defense production having already
launched its first aircraft carrier in 2012.

Additionally China’s home-made fifth-generation stealth fighter
and twin-engine J20 are expected to be operational by 2018 (though some experts are skeptical of
its capabilities) making an uneasy Tokyo calling for more
transparency on the reason for Beijing’s growing defense outlays.

This is evident from the annual defense whitepaper Japan released last
year clearly expressing Tokyo’s discomfort with the activities of
Chinese ships and aircraft in disputed areas such as the South
China and East China Seas, and also tacitly sending messages of
some inadvertent consequences should such activities continue
unabated.

Japan was responding to the heightened surveillance by China in the East China Sea
since 2012 following the Japanese government’s purchase of the
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands from a private owner, which lead Beijing
to place a warship targeting Japanese helicopters and a naval
destroyer, and enhancing its Air Defense Identification Zone
(ADIZ) to include part of the East China Sea,
thus demanding that aircraft flying into its zone identify
themselves, reveal flight data, or be prepared for emergency
actions.

Robust Pacifism

Last year Abe announced a "reinterpretation" of the Japanese
Pacifist Constitution which proclaimed Japan’s armed forces were for domestic
self-defense only, and could not participate in any third party
defense or offence of its allies or otherwise, not even in
UN-backed conflicts, other than as peacekeepers.

The reinterpretation, therefore, marked the end of Japan's
self-imposed ban on military assistance to an ally under attack
allowing for the overseas deployment of the Japanese military,
much to the pleasure of the US which for long had been demanding
that Japan gets more ‘involved’ in the security base
that Washington has in the region rather just being a mute
beneficiary.

This opened up a new chapter in defense cooperation between Japan
and its allies - notably the US - with possibilities of Tokyo now
free to defend its allies in case of an attack on them – a move
which perhaps other than China/North Korea aggressively
proliferating its nuclear program would have taken note of.

China’s rise could be making even traditional friends like
Australia nervous, evident from the announcement late last year
that defense ties between US-Japan-Australia would be deepened further. This could get more
formidable with Tokyo taking back its right to collective
defense.

New alliances clustered around Japan

Smaller Southeast Asian nations like the Philippines which have
readily accepted America’s Asia pivot as a means to counter
China, are increasingly getting apprehensive about a possible
scale down of military spending by the US
precipitating the fear of a more emboldened China.

As Japan increases its military spending and lifts restrictions
on its rights to defend its allies, these smaller countries may
find a new alternative ally in Japan, thus creating a new
alliance system in Asia.

Apart from the US, Japan has many supporters for its military
upgrade which includes the Philippines, Vietnam many of whom are
already in partnership with Tokyo following Abe’s
‘reinterpretation’ cooperating in military training and
aid, joint weapons development, and arms sales.

Tokyo may take this opportunity to build up the security
capabilities of China’s opponents through low scale weapons
supply for watching over their maritime security.

Reportedly Taiwan, earlier under Japanese
colonization and today sharing China’s territorial claims, seems
to be ready to forget the past with high profile officials
stating that Japan’s move to embrace collective defense will only
make the region safer.

While there indeed is a possibility of newer kind of alliances
clustered around Japan, China may also group up with Tokyo’s arch
rival South Korea with which Beijing already has a burgeoning
relationship especially in terms of trade and a shared history of
colonial past under Japan – a memory China always exploits to
widen the rift between the Japanese – South Korean relationship.

An example of this is the memorial hall constructed by China - at
the proposal of South Korean President Park Geun-hye during her
Beijing visit in 2013 – commemorating the Korean national Ahn
Jung-geun who had assassinated Japanese Governor General of Korea
Hirobumi Ito on Oct. 26, 1909 – who Japan calls a ‘terrorist’.
The memorial is situated in the Chinese city of Harbin where the
assassination took place.

Even while responding to Abe’s reinterpretation of Japan’s
Pacifism, China and South Korea were together in condemning the
decision. Beijing stated, "China opposes the Japanese
fabricating the China threat to promote its domestic political
agenda," adding, "We demand that Japan respect the
reasonable security concerns of its Asian neighbors and prudently
handle the relevant matter."

“Threat perceptions” may lead to a greater arms race in
the region especially between China and Japan with smaller
nations being compelled to take sides. There’s clearly a vacuum
created in the region for a balancing factor that can deter any
major collision in the region especially in the East China Sea.
Obviously the US with its own problems in the Middle East and
Russia cannot play this role.

Can Indonesia’s Jokowi, Japan’s major trading partner and a known
solution seeker in the South China Sea dispute, be the one that
can facilitate talks between competing states including China,
Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia – replicate
its role in East China Sea?

After all it has been a long advocate of Code of Conduct in the
South China Sea which proved its mettle as a mediator by closing
a long time maritime boundary dispute with the Philippines.

Indonesia could soon get drawn into the dispute with China’s
rapid advance towards the region around the Natuna Islands
situated in Indonesia’s Riau Islands province that constitute the
southern limit of the South China Sea which Jakarta considers its
exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Quite obviously it will be
impossible for Jakarta to stand as a neutral middleman.

So how peacekeeping is sought in the region by all the parties
involved – amidst the major powers asserting their defense
postures - is a major thing to watch out for as the year unfolds.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.